Lloyd Newson likes to ask questions. The founding director of DV8 Physical Theatre is happier challenging assumptions than providing answers: 'What makes something good? What makes something bad? What is valuable? Why? And are these choices arbitary?'

DV8's new show, the first in two years, is called Living Costs. It will be performed twice nightly in the Tate Modern starting on Monday, and not just in, but all over the building. From the Turbine Hall to the top floor, this hour-long promenade performance will travel up escalators and stop off for both live and film events along the way.

'It is a huge production,' says Newson. 'We have to live up to the building and live up to DV8. We have a rain curtain at one point, we also have fire. There are huge logistical challenges, but it's a bit like a game.'

'When we first got into the building a lot of stuff we'd done in the studio just disappeared, so we had to start over. That was a scary moment. The building is an animal. If we can conquer this one, any other building is going to be a doddle.'

DV8's show is part of this year's Tate & Egg Live series. 'I'm excited about the fact that we're in a series of programmes that has nothing to do with dance per se, because I've always felt that DV8 is not a "dance" company,' says Newson. 'Dance has this tiny little niche world that is so rarefied and so obsessed with a certain aesthetic and the general world does not truly care. Dance has to relate to who and what we are,' he insists. 'It needs to be more than chic bodies looking vaguely sexy to nice music; that's nothing more than an extension of aspirational lifestyles. I'm interested in value, about what is expensive and what is cheap, in both living and art. And what are the costs?'

Living Costs is crammed with those implied questions. Is a clown any different than an opera singer, and why? What turns a physical trick into art? There are 11 members in the cast — 'every shape, experience, size and age' — well, there might be 12. Newson has a tendency to turn up somewhere for a brief appearance.

'I'm here basically to try and unsettle people, to get them out of the comfort mode. I would like to take more risks. I'm at the point now where, if I'm going to continue making work, I have to be able to stimulate myself and that means constantly putting myself in dangerous situations, situations that make me think and behave differently. So, DV8 will just keep deviating.'

'I think the base line is that I want to say whatever I need as accurately as I have to and if calling it dance is going to stop me from doing that, then I don't want to call it dance.'